Ran Prieur is a blogger I’ve followed for many years. Here’s why he is optimistic.

“I’ve been asked why I’m so optimistic. My answer is that I’ve walked up a wild stream in midsummer on LSD. I don’t want to use the word “nature” because there’s always some jerk who says “everything is natural” — a valid semantic choice, which erases a really valuable distinction, which I preserve by framing it as the human-made world vs the non-human-made world.

“The non-human-made world is basically heaven. You don’t need LSD to see it but it helps. And beside it, or often on top of it, the human-made world is like mean kids playing with blocks, all clunky and ugly.

“And yet, humans are supposedly better than trees and grass and bugs and birds. Maybe that’s an illusion, and we’re intrinsic degenerates who need to go extinct. But if we really are better, then we have the potential, instead of poisoning and paving the non-human-made world, to take that riotous beauty and run with it.”

However, he has also written that human improvement, if the species survives, will probably take thousands of years. He takes the long view.

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